Annual Staff Barbecue

2004 June 18

Hey Hey! And a Hoo! Hoo! I don’t know, whatever. Anyway, I have this monster beef with a policy at work, and as such, I am boycotting the Annual Staff Barbecue. Now let me explain and you tell me whether I’m an idiot. And for all of you just dying to tell me I’m an idiot, settle down and read first.

So, in my workplace, the dress code is fairly relaxed. When I took the job, I was told, no jeans, shirts with collars and not running shoes. Easy enough. And on Fridays, not ripped jeans or sweatpants (or spandex), no offensive material on shirts, not flip-flops. Again, easy enough. I’ve never been much of a flip-flop man, myself. Well, the policy has changed enough to piss me off to no end! This “no jeans” has been amended to include any pant that might resemble jeans, whether in colour, texture or cut; i.e. rivets on seams or front/back pockets in the style of jeans. Now, I don’t know about you, but “jeans” to me are denim and blue or black. If they’re not denim, they’re not jeans.

My big beef is that the pants I have — and I’ll admit that Old Navy labels them as jeans — are not jeans, in my opinion. (I tried to find them on the Old Navy website, so that you could see for yourselves, but they’re not there, sorry.) The fabric is simply a medium-weight cotton, little different from khakis, chinos, or even the ’80’s staple, rugby pants. So, not denim, not jeans. They are definitely cut in the style of jeans, with the cresent shaped front pocket, a rivet at the corner of each pocket, etc. I think (hope) we all know what jeans look like. That’s why I bought them. Khakis look ridiculous on me. Non-denim pants cut like jeans were a solid alternative, when I was not able to wear jeans. But now they have been classified as jeans by my employer. So, in response, not only am I not going to stop wearing these pants, I’ve decided to avoid being much of a team player, which in this case includes not attending the barbecue.

For those of you who think I should take this up with my manager, she’s a big fan of blindly following policy with no regard for how it affects the staff. For example, in May we were not meeting our Service Level (picking up 80% of calls within the first 20 seconds, so the callers aren’t on hold for more than 20 seconds), so she had us all work harder, and take only minimal time off the phones. Which makes sense until you take into account that by the middle of the month we’d already taken as many calls as we normally would have for the entire month. And by the end of the month, we hit 79.6% SL and just over 12000 calls, when we would normally take just over 6000. So, not only did we come incredibly close to SL, we took twice as many calls. But, no, we didn’t make SL, and that’s what’s important.

My question(s) to you: Am I wrong? Are the pants jeans? Should I quit being so pissy? Should I go to the barbecue?